Face: shape and angle

Helen Muspratt, photographer

Jessica Sutcliffe

Description

Born into a civil service family in India in 1907, Helen Muspratt was a lifelong communist, a member of the Cambridge intellectual milieu of the 1930s, and a working mother at a time when such a role was unusual for women of her class. She was also a pioneering photographer, creating an extraordinary body of work in many different styles and genres. In partnership with Lettice Ramsey she made portraits of many notable figures of the 1930s in the fields of science and culture. Her experimental photography, using techniques such as solarisation and multiple exposure, bears comparison with the innovations of Man Ray and Lee Miller.

This book reproduces some of Helen Muspratt's most important photographic images, including documentary records of the Soviet Union and the Welsh valleys. The accompanying text by Jessica Sutcliffe is an intimate and revealing memoir of her mother that offers a fascinating insight into her life, work and politics.

Face: shape and angle

Helen Muspratt, photographer

Jessica Sutcliffe

Table of Contents

Foreword: Val Williams

Introduction: Simla

Early YearsOldfeld SchoolProfessional TrainingThe Swanage StudioCambridgeCreative ExperimentsMarriage and Documentary PhotographyThe Move to Oxford and the Second World WarWork, Home and PoliticsCoping with TragedyLater Life and Recognition

Face: shape and angle

Helen Muspratt, photographer

Jessica Sutcliffe

Reviews and Awards

Winner of the CALH Annual Book Award 2017

'Jessica Sutcliffe's book, painstakingly researched and wonderfully written, will supply yet one more piece in the photo-historical jigsaw which is the history of women's photography.' Val Williams, author of Women Photographers, The Other Observers

Face: shape and angle

Helen Muspratt, photographer

Jessica Sutcliffe

From Our Blog

Helen Muspratt (1905'2001) was a pioneering photographer. Her unique techniques with different forms of exposure made her a driving force in naturalistic portraiture and social documentation. Throughout her illustrious career, Helen photographed the likes of Dorothy Hodgkin, Nobel Prize winning chemist; Roger Fry and Julian Bell of the Bloomsbury Group; painter Paul Nash; journalist Alistair Cooke; and many others.